Where Would I Be?
by badforgood
Summary: On the way back from an unauthorized Hogsmeade trip one night, the secret passageway to Hogwarts collaapses, leaving two Marauders in a slight dilemma. SLASH warning, SBRL. This will be a 3 chapter ficlet when finished.
1. On Our Way

**Where Would I Be?**

_**Introduction**_

_Well I originally intended for this to be a oneshot, but now I think I may post the ficlet in three chapters. This is slash by the way, in case you hadn't noticed. So if you don't like it, then don't read it. _

_No Deathly Hallows spoilers here, as it's all set in the Marauders' Era. _

_You may ask why I'm wasting my time writing this when I should be updating "Familiar Faces", so I'll tell you. I finished typing up chapter 5 yesterday, but wouldn't let me upload any documents, so I haven't been able to post it yet. Which is annoying. I could type up chapter 6 but, well, I don't feel like it, as it brings me closer to chapter 7, and then I'll have to write that. You see, I'm stuck in the middle of chapter 7, on a boring bit I don't want to write because it's…well…boring. And if I don't enjoy writing it, then there's no way anyone will enjoy reading it. So I'm having a break and writing something I do enjoy, in the hope that I'll get some inspiration. If that makes any sense at all._

_(One other reason I wrote this is because I can't pair off Sirius and Remus in "Familiar Faces" so this will remove all temptation. I hope.)_

**Chapter 1 – On Our Way**

"Oh no! We forgot the butterbeer!"

Peter was immediately shushed by the two boys in front of him.

"No we didn't, Sirius picked some up while the rest of us were in Honeydukes, remember?" whispered the first of the two, indicating the telltale clinking of bottles that came from the cloak of his companion, who turned and flashed him a grin.

You did get me the sugar quills though? You didn't forget, right?" Sirius whispered back to his friend.

"Sugar quills? What? No, you asked for Ice Mice and Acid Pops…didn't you?"

"No, you idiot! Tell me you're joking, seriously mate."

"Nope. But if you want some Fizzing Whizbees they're in my pocket somewhere." James made a show of turning out each of his pockets in search for the paper bag.

"The one thing I ask you to do! The one thing! I would make you turn around right now and get some if we weren't already halfway through the tunnel!"

"But James, I saw you buy three long-lasting sugar quills, I'm sure!" came the squeaky voice of the shorter, and decidedly more plump boy. Sirius sighed, and quite possibly rolled his eyes, but the tunnel was dark aside from the dim light coming from James' wand tip. Too dim for anyone to see much.

"Well done, Wormtail." James's voice was dripping in sarcasm.

"You did get them! You stinking rotten liar, you had me really worried there!" Sirius' self righteous voice rang out loudly through the otherwise quiet passageway. The sound of a thud and an "oof" followed it.

"Ouch! What was that for?"

"What do you think, moron?"

"It was just a joke!"

"And it was just a shove! Now we're even."

The voices were much louder than whispers now. They were, in fact, nowhere near so. The words echoed off the stone walls of the passage, magnifying them tenfold. Remus Lupin walked behind his three friends, watching, or at least listening to, the continued banter between his two friends.

They often did this. Play fighting. Neither of them actually meant it, no, they were the best of friends. But they could get carried away at times. Quite a lot of the time actually, come to think of it, and now seemed to be one of them. It was usually best to just let them get on with it without interfering. Remus, ever the sensible one, usually stayed well back for fear of getting a shoe in his face.

It wasn't that he was a coward or anything. No, Remus had his share of brawls, or whatever you might want to call them. It was just that James and Sirius were particularly violent, probably due to both of their extremely competitive natures.

Like when Remus had the unfortunate job of being the one sent back upstairs to wake Sirius up when everyone was waiting to go down to breakfast. Sometimes, he would be able to escape with merely a pillow aimed and half-heartedly thrown at the back of his head. At other times, however, he was less lucky. Every so often Remus would be pounced on after prodding his sleepy friend in the shoulder. He put it down to Sirius' dog instincts.

Sirius would leap out of bed in an entirely un-morning-like fashion for most (sane) people, and attempt to pin Remus to the ground. A lot of rolling around and hitting into things usually ensued, and more often than not, Remus would end up with Sirius sat on top of his chest with a triumphant look on his face, thwarting every attempt of Remus' to struggle to his feet.

It was odd though, one time, at the bottom of the staircase as usual, they were deciding who would have the short straw this particular morning. They had nearly decided to send Remus up again, when James had said no, Moony took three times as long as everyone else, and he was really hungry and wanted to get down to breakfast, thank you very much. Remus had protested that it wasn't his fault he got wrestled to the floor for his efforts. James had replied that it couldn't be right, because Sirius never had enough energy to tackle anyone in the morning, let alone when he had just woken up. Apparently the most abuse James had ever received was a fist aimed feebly at his face. No, what Remus said couldn't be true, and Peter nodded along with James, making noises of agreement, and was promptly sent upstairs by James so he could hurry up and get some bacon.

So what had he done to deserve this?

He could picture it perfectly now: looking up at Sirius' laughing face, his twinkling eyes looking straight into Remus' grey ones, the morning sun shining through his long black hair, squirming to get free, but Sirius' strong, lean hands pinning his wrists to the floor. Sirius' comfortable weight on-

"OUCH!"

Something relatively large and rock-like had just fallen out of nowhere onto Remus' foot, bringing his mind back to reality with a painful jolt.

"OW! Fuck! My toe!"

Remus looked down, and bent to pick up what was indeed a rock but had bounced off his toe and rolled a little way across the floor.

"Moony, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you swear. You're supposed to be the well behaved one."

"Shut up, Sirius, oh come off it," Remus snorted in derisive laughter. "Well whichever of you threw that-"

"We weren't throwing rocks!" exclaimed James, astounded. "What do you think we are, cavemen?"

"Well wherever it came from, it bloody hurts."

Remus looked around him for a place to sit down, and saw Sirius had already occupied a large boulder that lay on the side of the tunnel, the only one by the looks of it. _Trust Sirius to steal the only seat from an invalid; _Remus rolled his eyes as he looked expectantly at Sirius, waiting for him to get up. Obviously deciding he didn't want to sacrifice his new seat completely, Sirius budged over and offered the other half of the seat to Remus.

That would have to do.

Wincing, he pulled his right shoe off, and then his sock, to inspect the damages. It really did hurt. A lot. It was annoying though, he couldn't see properly at all. Remus beckoned for James to come closer with the wand light, still waiting for a foot joke that was sure to come from the boy beside him.

However it never came, because they all jumped out of their skins when an even larger rock fell to the ground with a crash, just in front of where the first one had landed.

"I told you it wasn't us," James began, "Quick, let's get out of here."

"James, that's the most sensible thing I've heard you say all night…hey! Wait for us!"

James had begun to sprint down the passageway, as yet another boulder fell as if from nowhere. Well if nowhere was the roof of the tunnel. Peter was scampering after his retreating back, leaving Remus frantically attempting to put his shoe back on in the fast diminishing light.

"Oh just forget it! Leave the damn shoe behind, Moony!"

"Right, good plan. You go ahead, and I'll see you at the entrance." Remus gestured towards Peter's wobbling backside as he retreated down the tunnel.

"No way. You're crippled, remember?"

Remus did remember, very painfully, as he attempted to put his weight on the wrong foot in order to make a speedy escape. He let out a yelp of pain and would have collapsed to the floor but for the strong grip that supported him under one arm.

_Well what do you know, Sirius can actually be thoughtful_, Remus inwardly smiled.

"See? Where would you be without me?"

"On the floor, quite possibly, as you well know it." Remus shot a grateful smile at his friend, forgetting that the darkness rendered it pointless. Well come to think of it, a little light would be more than useful. James, and more importantly his wand light, had disappeared from sight.

"Lumos!"

"Good thinking."

"Where would you be without me?"

"Bumbling around in the dark quite possibly," Remus could now see Sirius' grin lighting up his face as he chuckled, "but let's hurry the hell up!"

Small rocks were dropping all around them now, and they began to make their way down the passage as quickly as possible. However, that wasn't particularly quickly with Remus hopping on his good leg, still supported by Sirius' muscular arm.

He had his sleeves rolled up, Remus noticed. He wasn't sure why he noticed, but he did.

They managed to work up a steady rhythm, Remus limping in time to Sirius' stride, as rocks began to fall faster and faster.

A small stone bounced off the top of Sirius' head, causing him to stop for a moment and rub his head before they continued. _Thank god it was just a small stone_, thought Remus, deciding he didn't want to imagine what could have happened if it hadn't been.

They continued their steady half-walk half-run, each of their free hands trying to shield their heads. This was relatively effective, but it was only a matter of time before a larger rock came down and squashed one of them. Every so often they had to climb painstakingly over mounds of rubble that had already settled on the ground.

As sudden rush of inspiration hit Remus, which was luckily much less painful than if a rock had hit him, and he yelled for Sirius to stop, hoping he could be heard over the increasingly loud crashing of stone around them.

"We're wizards, damnit!"

"Yes, thanks for reminding me, but now's not the time for-" Sirius' words were barely audible through all the noise, and the rest of the sentence was lost as a particularly large boulder crashed to the ground inches from Remus.

"Protego!"

"…Now if you don't mind can we hurry up before we get squished?"

The rest of Sirius' words were loud and clear, thanks to the immediate diminishing of the crashing of stone against stone. Sirius, it seemed, only realised this after he had finished speaking, because he had still been shouting.

The only problem was that they were plunged into darkness as Remus concentrated all of his wand's strength into the shield he had conjured.

"Remus…I can't see. It's dark."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Hmph. Stop being such a smart arse."

"It's not my fault you state the obvious!"

Remus was willing to bet money that Sirius was standing with his arms folded and a sulky look on his face. But since there was no light, as Sirius had been so wise as to point out, there was no way of telling.

"But we should really get going now," Remus suggested, a peace offering of sorts.

Silence.

_Fine, he could stay in a strop._

"But it really would help if you could light your wand."

Nothing.

_He's as stubborn as he was competitive_. Remus sighed and started his attempt to walk on his own, since Sirius had let go of him at some point in the last minute or two. Now he noticed it, the absence of a warm body beside his made him shiver slightly, and it wasn't even particularly cold.

Remus gingerly put some weight onto the heel of his bad foot, careful to avoid his toes, gradually increased the pressure until all his weight was on it, and quickly stepped forward to switch his balance to the other foot. After repeating this a couple of times, he gave up.

_I'm not going to get anywhere at this rate, I don't even know if I'm going forwards! Damn you Sirius. Right…what if I try to hop?_

Remus lifted his still aching foot out of harm's way, and proceeded to hop along, in a very unstable way (this was why he didn't play Quiddich) in what he hoped was the right direction. His shield travelled with him, as did (he assumed) Sirius. However, his concentration was on keeping his balance, so Remus did not attempt to strain his ears to hear where Sirius' footsteps fell. But he could rest assured with the knowledge that he would have felt the impact on his shield if Sirius had left its confines.

_This is working pretty well actually,_ Remus thought too soon, as his foot caught between two boulders. He fell forwards with his arms flailing, expecting his head to smash into the floor at any second.

Instead, he hit something that was much softer than, and was most definitely not, a rock. The thing that was not a rock, Remus assumed it must be his sullen companion, let out a yelp of surprise as Remus knocked into him.

Sirius' reactions were quick, however, much faster than Remus' in fact. Thankfully he managed to grab Remus' arm and save him from face planting the floor for the second time that night.

"Erm…thanks."

With the support of Sirius once more, Remus was able to wrench his foot out from between the large rocks, and stumble away from them. Once again, he was glad for the darkness.

"We'd better hurry though, we have to be near the end of the tunnel by now, we've been walking for ages. Can you please light this place up now, I don't really feel like falling over again."

"Well don't you think I already would have if I could?" Sirius' voice was incredulous.

"No, because you were sulking!"

"Sulking? I was looking for my wand! And then one second you where there, and the next you had disappeared!"

"Well couldn't you have just asked me where I was?"_ Honestly, doesn't Sirius even think? He's one of the brightest in the year after all._

"Why? There was no need, you were making enough noise as it was. What _were_ you doing to make such a racket anyway?"

"Hopping," Remus murmured as quietly as possible, since he hadn't been able to think up a less…embarrassing…excuse quickly enough. But Sirius must have heard him, for he let out a roar of laughter.

Keen to change the subject, Remus attempted to bring Sirius' attention back to the previous topic of conversation. "So why didn't you follow the…erm…noise, and find me again?" It seemed the obvious thing to do. "It would have made things a whole lot easier."

"Bit I did! That's why you didn't crack your skull open on the ground." Though it was pitch black, Remus could practically feel Sirius grinning.

"Fine. Fine! But what about your wand? I can't try to summon it because I'm holding this shield up. But we can't go and look for it either, because we'd need light." _Oh this is just brilliant_. "If we carry on out of the tunnel then it might get buried, but if we drop the shield so we can find it, there's a good chance we will be!"

"Well I know I had it back there with James," Sirius mused, "So I must have dropped it somewhere along the way. Damn I wish I could do wandless magic, then I could find my wand. But if I could do wandless magic, I wouldn't need a wand, so we wouldn't need a light to find my wand, and-"

He was interrupted from this intelligent train of thought with a thwap on the head from Remus' free arm. "Focus, Sirius!"

"Oh yeah, right."

"So what do we do? Forward or back?"

"Well it's not like we have much of a choice really. Let's just carry on and get the hell out of here, then we can worry about my wand. We can manage to walk without a light, right?"

Remus nodded before remembering that Sirius could not see this, but it didn't seem to matter as his friend gripped him firmly under the arm once more. A feeling of warmth rushed through Remus at the touch, which he put down to the fact that in a dark stone tunnel, any reassurance that he wasn't alone was welcome.

They took a few steps, and just as they had reached the familiar rhythm of earlier, they collided with something hard and smooth.

"That's not a rock," came Sirius' voice from right beside Remus, the whisper tickling the hairs on his neck.

"No, it's too smooth." Remus ran his wandless hand over the cool, seamless surface of whatever it was that stood before them. He noticed that it curved slightly as it reached up towards the ceiling, as far as he could reach.

_It can't be…can it?_

"Turn around, we're going back."

_But if it is…_Remus didn't want to think about that eventuality.

They had taken no more than a dozen steps when they collided with an identical wall. It was exactly as Remus had feared.

"The shield…it hasn't moved with us. But surely that's impossible? It's against the laws of…well…everything!" Remus was speaking in a vain attempt to reassure himself as much as his friend.

"What if they're just the sides of the tunnel?" Remus could tell by Sirius' tone that he believed this no more than Remus believed what he had just said. No, they had been walking in the same direction this whole time, if this was a wall they would have hit it long before now.

"Then how…?" Sirius continued, leaving his question unfinished. But they both knew how, and neither of them wanted to admit it, to themselves or each other.

"Something has to be blocking it." There, he had said it, and knew it was true. While they had been stationary, the falling rocks had gathered around them, kept out by the shield charm. The curved top of the shield meant that yet more rocks had tumbled down it's side from above to come to rest at either side.

There was no other way to put it. They were trapped.

---

**There you have it, the beginning of some complete and utter fluff. Did you enjoy it? Shall I write more? Let me know!**


	2. In Between

**Chapter 2 – In Between**

"We need light."

"Yes, I do believe we discussed that particular predicament."

"Well that doesn't defeat the point that we _do_ need light, otherwise we can't get out." Remus sighed for what seemed to be the millionth time that night.

"Bit if we had any way of creating light, any at all, we wouldn't be stuck in the first place."

He had a point. And it was a good one too.

"Yes but…but…how are we going to escape if we can't even see?"

"Umm…" It seemed he had Sirius just as stumped as he was. "Well how are we going to escape if there's a bloody magical shield in the way then?"

_Always the thinker, that Sirius._

"Can you stand up on your own?"

_Is he joking?_ Remus wondered, his mind flashing back to the way he had nearly fallen over twice in the last...however long it was…when left unattended. "…Because I'm going to go round the edges, just to check, you know?" _Okay, so he is being Serious._

Remus grunted in a non-committal way and felt the combined weight and support of Sirius disappear from his side, feeling the same strange and indescribable loss that he had noticed earlier. He dismissed the oddity and lowered himself to the ground, resigned to the fact that they would probably be here for a while, so he may as well.

After listening to Sirius' footsteps and indecipherable mutterings to himself travel around him in a full circle for what was some time between a few seconds and an eternity (Remus couldn't tell, but it definitely felt like the latter), Sirius spoke out loud.

"Moony, where are you?"

"Right here, follow my voice."

The footsteps grew louder and closer until the toe of a shoe collided sharply with Remus' side, causing him to let out a yell of pain and a string of curses.

"What are you doing down there, you idiot?" came Sirius' voice from above him, before the voice dropped down, and Remus knew Sirius' head was now level with his own. "And I'm really sorry, where did I kick you?"

Remus was genuinely surprised by the (though delayed) note of caring in his friend's voice. Sirius tended to be one to laugh off injuries, and treasure his war scars.

"Oww…ribs…" was all he managed to come out with in reply.

"Here?"

"OUCH! Don't poke it you imbecile!"

It would have been alright if had really just been a kick in the ribs. He could get over that. The problem was, the full moon had been less than a week ago. When Remus had woken up in the hospital wing the next morning, as usually happened, he'd had a bandage wrapped around his middle, hiding a huge gash in his left side. Apparently he'd cut himself on something, even breaking a couple of ribs in the process. It had all been healed magically within the hour of course, but Madam Pomfrey, the young nurse who had taken over the role of Hogwarts healer the year before, had told him he must be careful for a couple of weeks or else the magic wouldn't remain properly.

"Sorry!" Sirius' voice sounded panicked. _Did he actually mean to help_? Remus wondered, feeling a twinge of guilt for snapping at his friend. Hoping to indicate that he was sorry, Remus felt around in the air until he found Sirius' hand, that had been quickly withdrawn. He guided it to the place where his ribs had (or at least it felt so) bust into flame, and whispered softly, "There."

It was a peculiar feeling, his hand flat on top of Sirius' holding it gently to his side. Peculiar as it was, Remus felt the plan flowing in his ribs subside slightly, and took a deep breath, finding he could breathe easily again.

Sirius spoke, but made no attempt to remove his hand. "I think we're going to have to get rid of the shield."

"Fair enough, I've heard being buried alive by rubble doesn't really hurt." Remus chuckled slightly, which made him wince, and as his ribs moved he became more aware of the pressure on his side, and how it didn't feel nearly as strange as it ought to. Feeling a warmth rise in his cheeks as he realised that he just thought this, Remus stuttered, "Now where's my wand gone?" He lifted his hand from Sirius' surprisingly warm on, and felt around on the ground for the object. He must have let go of it when Sirius kicked him.

Remus knew full well that he could have easily used his free hand.

His hands skimmed across the stone strewn ground, did not close around the familiar wood. Remus felt his fingers brush against something warm, and recoiled sharply on realising that it was Sirius' knee, with a murmured "sorry".

"Looking for this?"

The voice was much closer than he had expected, Sirius had obviously come closer to help find the wand. Before Remus could reach out and take it, however, he heard a muted "finite incantatem". A split second later he realised what Sirius had done, as s rumble of rocks being dislodged reached his ears.

"NO! SIRIUS! I WAS JOKING ABOU-mmph"

His words were muffled as a hand was clamped over his mouth.

"Shut up Moony," came there calm and slightly exasperated voice of Sirius, as Remus simultaneously struggled to get free and protect his head from the boulders that he knew would crush him any second now.

"MOONY! CHILL!"

Sirius had to raise his voice so Remus could hear him over his continued struggles, but still he fought to get the surprisingly strong hand from his mouth."

"REMUS!"

The pressure was gone from his mouth, and two hands grasped his shoulders instead, preventing him from moving.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" were the first words that came out of Remus' mouth, interspersed by gasping breaths of air.

He wasn't overreacting, Remus had suffered from claustrophobia for as long as he could remember. Being buried alive was really the worst nightmare he could imagine, and he really didn't want to imagine it. His experiences in enclosed spaces were far from good. Those hospital rooms, that he had been forced to spend days, weeks, even months in at a time. The small box-like bedroom of his parent's home in which he had been forced to suffer alone countless times. The Shrieking Shack that trapped him, caged him, every month.

It was no wonder that Remus' mind connected enclosed spaces with all of the pain that he knew – pain and suffering.

IT was usually fine in the passageways. He knew there was an entrance, and an exit, a space at each end. The tunnels were long, and he was with his friends, so he could ignore the walls that threatened to press in on him. It had never even occurred to him that one might collapse, that it could be so fragile.

His friends knew of his phobia. That one time in the dungeons…well it was suffice to say that they knew just how bad it could get. That he could get.

Now Sirius was crouched before Remus, doing his best to calm him down.

"In case you hadn't noticed, you haven't been crushed yet."

Remus stopped the last of his struggling to remove Sirius' hands from his shoulders, and relaxed the arms that were covering his head slightly. Though it was pointless in the pitch blackness, he tilted his face upwards as if he could find an answer by looking at the roof.

"I put the shield charm back up, except smaller."

When Remus didn't say anything, Sirius continued. "So any loose rocks have fallen, but bounced off the new shield. I did it straight after removing the first one, but you were too busy having your nervy fit to notice.

Remus processed this in his mind. "So…if we remove this shield now, nothing will happen?" He was panting slightly in the aftermath of his panic attack.

"Nope, any rocks that would have fallen already have."

"That's…that's really clever." As he lowered his arms, having decided that his head no longer needed protecting, Remus couldn't stop himself sounding impressed. He knew that in any other situation, Sirius would be parading proudly around the room from having received a compliment from him.

"So you're not going to launch yourself at me if I let you go?"

Remus had momentarily forgotten the hands on his shoulders, and felt the warmth in his cheeks return as an image popped up uninvited into his head of him launching himself at Sirius in an entirely inappropriate way.

"Um..no…well maybe. It depends whether you do something ridiculous like that again without explaining it to me first."

"Well that's a risk I'm willing to take." Sirius half laughed, but his hands lingered for a moment before dropping to his sides.

"Just one question, Padfoot. If you were holding me back with both hands, what the hell did you do with my wand?"

"Shit."

Remus groaned, "Oh you complete idiot! Okay it'll be on the ground here somewhere, right?"

"Yeah."

A few moments, minutes even, was spent grappling around on the floor, but to no avail. At one point, Sirius cried "Got it!" before realising that he was, in fact, holding Remus' finger.

"Why don't I just try...Lumos!" Remus called, and amazingly, they were engulfed by dazzling light. "ARGH! My eyes! Turn it off, quick, turn it off!" Sirius had thrown an arm over his eyes and was signalling wildly with the other.

"No! It's on your crotch, _you_ do it!"

"Fine, nox!"

It went black again immediately, though this time, Remus had white circles burnt into his retinas. They remained there even when he blinked repeatedly.

"I think I've been blinded for life," came a voice in front of him, and Remus heartily agreed. "Can we try it again though? Except this time I'll hold the wand and be able to control it."

"No thanks. I think I prefer the darkness."

"But Sirius! We can't get out if we can't see!"

"Well I'd prefer to keep my eyeballs intact actually. So if you want to do it, go ahead, but I'm not giving you the wand."

"And you think I won't get it myself because it's on your crotch?"

"Exactly. You're learning the art of manipulation very quickly, Mr. Lupin."

"Well I suggest you learn some better tactics, _Mr. Black_. Accio wand!"

Nothing happened. _How embarrassing_. Remus had no choice…he _had_ to do it, to prove his point as much as anything else.

A few moments of awkward silence later, Sirius' voice rang out through the darkness, "Have you finished feeling me up yet?"

"Hey! You did that on purpose, what did you do with it?"

"How do you know it's not still there?" The innocent voice Sirius was putting on was frankly sickening, in Remus' opinion. The git.

"Because I know you Sirius, and I know you don't play fair!"

"Who said I had to be fair? You should thank the wise man that told me to change my tactics" Remus could tell just from Sirius' voice that he was smirking. Well he'd just have to wipe the smirk of that idiot's face.

"You know when I said I'd only launch myself at you if you did something really stupid? Well I'm pretty sure this qualifies." And with those words, Remus did just that.

It wasn't until he did that he remembered, with a jolt of pain, that he had been kicked only a few minutes earlier. However he ignored it as best he could to pursue his aim of giving Sirius the beating he deserved. Sirius mustn't have expected Remus to actually carry through with his threat, as he was knocked backwards unsuspectingly; narrowly missing a jagged rock that would have cracked his skull had it been lying inches to the left.

Remus' hands were pinning Sirius' wrists to the ground at either side of his head. How he'd managed to do that in the dark was a mystery. Now his captive couldn't move, Remus was stuck as of what to do next. He hadn't really expected for his attack to succeed. Indeed, it was safe to say that if Sirius hadn't been taken by surprise – so much so that he had no time to defend himself – the positions would be reversed. It was odd though, it crossed Remus' mind that Sirius wasn't struggling, even now.

"So, what're you going to do now?" Sirius voiced his captor's thoughts. Remus shoved a couple of inappropriate images that had surfaced in his mind aside, and replied. "Give me my wand back!"

"Or what?"

"Or…" Remus thought hard. "Or…I'll have no choice but to say a certain incantation beginning with _L_ and ending with _umos_." A grin spread across his face. He had Sirius now, for sure.

Then, completely unexpectedly, Sirius' right arm broke free from his slackened grip and a hand attached itself to his face, covering his eyes. Before Remus could say "Padfoot, covering my eyes really won't do much good when it's dark" the hand had moved down and was clasped over his mouth so he couldn't utter a word.

Ah. Clever.

"Oh really?"

_Lumos_, Remus thought, concentrating as hard as he could. _Lumos, Lumos, LUMOS!_ Nothing happened. Apparently he wasn't gifted in the wandless, non-verbal magic. _Does that even exist?_ Remus wondered. _But never mind that. What to do…what to do?_

With his free hand, Remus attempted to pull Sirius' off his face, but the latter was stronger, and the hand wouldn't budge. It was no use, even when Remus attempted to yank his head away. There was only one thing for it. Sirius – there was no better word for it – squealed as Remus stuck his tongue out and licked his palm. Remus took advantage of that surprised moment to wrench free, but accidentally freeing Sirius' other hand in the process.

Now the only advantage he had over Sirius was his weight pressing his companion's torso to eh ground, and the two hands still clasping one of his fellow Gryffindor's wrists. Taking a few deep breaths now he had use of his mouth again, Remus decided to take action.

"Lumos!"

The dazzling light reappeared several feet away from the pair, the wand having obviously rolled away in the fray. But now Remus was faced with a dilemma. Going to fetch the wand would mean relinquishing what little advantage he had over Sirius. But he needed that wand, to dim the light more than anything.

_Hmm._

A large lock of dark hair was lying right across Sirius' face, gripping Remus with the sudden and unexpected urge to sweep it away. Without thinking about what he was doing, Remus did just that, his fingertips brushing against the soft skin of Sirius' cheek – it really was incredibly soft – causing a tingle to run through his spine.

At this, Sirius' eyelids fluttered slightly, but did not open. It seemed that Sirius didn't' want to be blinded again just yet.

Realising that he still had hold of Sirius' wrist in one hand, Remus let it go. As the dropped, it brushed against his thigh, ever so lightly, startling him. One corner of Sirius' mouth twitched upwards in what was unmistakably half a smirk, before vanishing as if it had never been there.

Remus stared into his friend's face. Had he does that on purpose? Yet Sirius' eyes were still tightly shut and he showed no signs of life but for the rise and fall of the chest under Remus.

Sirius' raven black hair was fanned out around his head like the halo of a fallen angel. The light made it look incredibly shiny, Remus thought, and wondered if it felt as feathery as it looked. Before he realised, Remus had reached out with one hand to find out just this, running his fingers through the dark tresses.

Unconscious of doing so, Remus had leaned down, his face now only about a food from Sirius'. He could see clearly every crease in the skin around his eyes (as they were screwed so tightly shut), every pore in his flawless skin, every eyelash that matched the darkness of his hair.

Then Remus froze wide-eyed as a hand was lifted to his right side, and rested there. After nothing happened for a few moments, Remus felt his muscles relax again. _Go on_, the hand seemed to say, _go on_. Remus inched closer to Sirius and he saw the pink tip of a tongue dart out from between the thin lips, moistening them, and then disappearing again.

Then suddenly, as something (presumably Sirius' other hand) pressed into this left side, Remus was caught off guard by a jolt of pain and straighten his back with a jerk, clutching at it with a sharp intake of breath.

He felt Sirius squeeze out, inelegantly, from under him, and a few moments later the hards white glare was replaced by a soft blue glow. Then a pair of strong, protective arms was wrapped around his shoulders, and a low voice murmured in his ear.

"Just breathe, Remus, take a deep breath. That's it."

But the moment – if that's what it even was – had been lost.

---

**Yes, another chapter. Surprised? Wow it's been…nearly two months. Oops. [insert excuses that nobody even cares about anyway here Well I hope it was worth the wait. Well actually I don't think many people even read this fic, so there can't have been too many of you waiting anyway. But if you are somewhere out there then let me know since obviously the more people that pester me for the last chapter, the faster you will get it. And the good news is, I've started writing it already. The bad news is that I'll probably update 'Familiar Faces' again before this one (unless you read that too, in which case it's good news I guess). Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter! And sorry it's a bit of a cliffie.**


End file.
